The Marrakech Film Festival Kicks Off In Morocco

You'd be hard pressed to find a woman as charming, passionate, smart and gorgeous as Melita Toscon du Plantier, the director of the Marrakech International Film Festival. Since the festival's inception eleven years ago, Melita's championed not just movies, but the city of Marrakech, something that proved especially difficult this year given the political temperature of the Middle East.

"It was incredibly difficult this year to convince American people in particular to come," Melita told us. "They were kind of scared. They wanted to wait, to see how Morocco was going be after Tunisia and Egypt, and I had to explain to them that here in Morocco it's completely different and that everything is fine." Indeed, the mood here is celebratory, the people are generous (almost to a fault) and the weather is practically perfect (70 degrees and sunny everyday).

Last year's festival was such a hit, with guests like Francis Ford Coppola and Susan Sarandon, that Melita wondered how she'd possibly top it. "One hundred and six actors and directors were out on the red carpet last year, and I thought "How am I going to survive this?" But the director's prodigious charm won over a fresh slew of stars like Sigourney Weaver, Forrest Whitaker, Jessica Chastainand celebrated director Terry Gilliam. Melita's most excited about Chastain, "I adore her. At the beginning, they said she couldn't make it as she was shooting in Toronto, but she's a big cinephile and had never been to Marrakech so she called back and told us she'd changed the date of her shooting in Toronto, got on a plane directly from Toronto and was on the red carpet almost as soon as she landed. She didn't care about the so-called trouble in the region, she just really wanted to come."

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As for next year, Melita's already started planning the Bollywood-themed festival. "It's going to be huge; we hope to bring in at least 20 of Bollywood's best actors and directors to the festival," Melita said. "I'm going to Bombay soon to meet with people for next year and I will be traveling to LA in February for the Oscars. I love being an ambassador for Marrakech. For me, it's not a job, I have way too much fun for it to be considered that!"

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